Cash for Clunkers boosts July US auto sales
August 3rd, 2009 . by TexasFredCash for Clunkers boosts July US auto sales
DETROIT (AP) - Lured by the government’s cash for clunkers campaign, car and truck buyers started returning to showrooms last month, as Ford Motor Co. reported its first U.S. sales increase in nearly two years and other major automakers said sales showed signs of stability.
Overall, automakers are expected to turn in strong performances, most notably Korea’s Hyundai Motor Co., which may pass Chrysler Group LLC and Japan’s Nissan Motor Co. in sales for the first time in history. July sales, if converted to an annual rate, could top 10 million cars and trucks, the first month this year that sales rose above that depressed level.
As recently as 2007, U.S. car and light truck sales topped 16 million vehicles, but the recession, tight credit and a lack of consumer confidence sent sales plunging late last year and during the first half of 2009.
Ford, led by the redesigned midsize Ford Fusion, and strong sales of the Escape crossover vehicle and F-series pickup line, offered encouraging signs for industry analysts who predicted a modest improvement in the second-half of the year.
Full Story Here:
Cash for Clunkers boosts July US auto sales
Cash for Clunkers, what a concept…
Do our elected officials think that every person in the United States is dumb enough to fall for this? Do they believe we’re dumbed down to the point of being mindless zombies that just follow along blindly and never question their intent or methods?
Yes, that is, more or less, a highly rhetorical question.
Cash for Clunkers… Can you say smoke and mirrors? I think you can.
All that cash for all those clunkers is good for the auto industry I suppose, and yeah, better fuel mileage is a good thing too, but do the folks in the Senate think WE, The People don’t know that we’re the ones paying for this somewhat different form of a well camouflaged bail out?
I don’t blame the folks that are taking advantage of the Cash for Clunkers program, they need cars, and this is a way to get what looks like a really good deal, at the moment.
In the long run, everyone that buys a car under this Cash for Clunkers program has every American taxpayer as a co-signer on their car loan. But you know, I am betting that none of them are going to come by my house and ask me to go take a ride in their nice, new, fuel efficient car. Not even to go to Sonic during Happy Hour!
Congress approved the plan early in July, but the government considered suspending it on Thursday after an overwhelming response threatened to deplete the $1 billion allocated for the rebates.
But the program continued and the House voted to allocate another $2 billion to keep the sales going. The program’s fate hangs on whether the Senate will vote to extend more funds this week.
Where, exactly, are these funds coming from? Anyone? Bueller?
Our TAX dollars, that is exactly where the money comes from. Cash for Clunkers isn’t about helping folks that need a new car get one. It’s not about getting new cars on the road that get better fuel mileage. Cash for Clunkers is about generating SALES and revenue for automakers, and is, quite simply, another form of Obama stimulus. Washington, D.C. is off and running, meddling in our lives and PUBLIC business. A place where the feds have NO business being. Maybe it’s my fierce independence and little *L* libertarian views that makes this so hard for me to swallow.
The more we need the Fed to stay out, the more invasive they become, and it’s only going to get worse under Obamanure and Company.
General Motors Co. and Chrysler, both of which have gone in and out of bankruptcy protection and are surviving on a total of $65 billion in government aid, each have said their expenses are so low that they can break even if U.S. sales run around 10.5 million per year.
“There’s no question that the clunkers are going to help us get above the 10 million unit mark this month,” said Erich Merkle, president of the industry consulting firm autoeconomy.com in Grand Rapids, Mich.
Are you familiar with the term false positive? That is exactly what Cash for Clunkers is. A false positive. As soon as the huge financial contribution from the Fed ends, the automakers are right back in the tank, and the only way to get them out will be to reinstate this debacle of a program.
And here we go again, back into OUR pockets to save the car companies. If this doesn’t fully illustrate the idea of Robbing Peter to pay Paul, nothing ever will. And again I say, I am NOT a finance guy, but I have friends and associates that are, and we discuss this Cash for Clunkers, ObamaCare, Cap and Trade and a few other items on a regular basis. Spending our money, to GIVE us our money, is NOT how you fix the economy.
My investment broker has been in the business for many years and he has become a good friend over the last few months, I trust him with my future, and the future of my family. He manages our money in a highly volatile market. His take is if Cap and Trade passes, if the ObamaCare package passes and if there is ANY negative action on immigration, we are screwed, and your money needs to be moved to bonds immediately. He calls it ‘Obama Proofing’ your portfolio.
Cash for Clunkers is going to come back and bite us ALL folks. If the other Obama policies mentioned above happen to get full support from the Libs and RINOs in the Senate and House, it’s full blown socialism for the USA.
Nothing more than a way to put people farther into debt. At least that’s what hit my tiny brain yesterday.
Kate, I know, some of these idiots are running around claiming it’s a HUGE success and touting the economy as saved and the recession as over…
Of course the clowns doing all this crowing are the idiots that voted for Obamanure…
Hmmm…. if the recession is over, how come the unemployment numbers keep going up, instead of down? They never explain that one, do they. Oh, but wait….we’re suppose to have “stoopid” stamped on our forehead, so I reckon it’s all ok. How many of those singing Obumler’s praises have lost their jobs, their homes, their savings? Odds are, not too many. Idjits! sigh…
Ok, mini rant over. For now.
Boost sales for July, but the program is broke and sales will fall again.
I’m kind of wondering how many of those people can REALLY afford the cars they bought. It sounds like sub-prime loans all over again. The repo market is going to skyrocket in about 6 months. Then when those cars flood the market and run down the price on my car making it worthless for a trade in.
I guess we will be bailing out the banks again…this time for making bad car loans.
McCain had a chance to fillabuster additional monies for CFC, but declined. More proof the NVA screwed with his mind.
I’d like to point out something I haven’t seen considered… yet.
It seems to me this cash for clunkers thing is making my point about rationing of healthcare under socialized medicine… ObamaCare.
We have said that once ObamaCare is passed, hospitals will go broke and healthcare will have to be rationed. Why? Because people who have never seen a doctor in their lives, or rarely seen a doctor in their lives, will suddenly show up at doctor’s offices and hospitals and ER rooms looking for treatment for any and all ailments. Why? Because, hell folks, its FREE!!!
Look what happened with the Cash for Clunkers deal. People who could not afford to buy a car rushed out and took advantage of the FREE money the government was going to give them to buy their new car with. See what happened? RATIONING almost happened and will, I suspect, before the cash for clunkers deal is finally pulled. (In a way rationing IS happening with the cash for clunkers deal. The government is letting limited amounts of money in carefully constructed batches instead of having an open-ended flow of cash thru the program. I suppose that is a sort of rationing.)
All I am saying is the same thing will happen to healthcare in the nation under ObamaCare. This is not rocket science.
JDL
The government has taken so much from so many that they need some back in order to afford stuff. The government call this helping us out.
If they wouldn’t have robbed us for so much for so long, we might have been able to take care of ourselves. Now people are so stupid that they think the government is actually helping. Others have told me how generous our nation is. With MY money I might add.
It will only get worse the longer he is in office.
My neighbor got one over on the government. He took in his old, barely running POS that he was going to use for a trade-in, got the money, paid the rest in cash (yes some people still save money), and now his wife has a brand new, American-made Toyota.
Funny thing is that he was going to trade that car in any way and got more money for it now.
Got one over on the TAX PAYER is more like it…
He pays taxes too. So I guess it is a way to get his money back.
I guess they DO think that we are too stupid to realize that it is OUR money that they are giving away. A diguised bailout indeed, more money for the automakers taken from the people.
Longstreet hit the nail on the head with an atomic powered sledgehammer. What he describes there is the same thing that happened to military instillation’s all over America. Many of these instillation’s closed the emergency rooms in their hospitals and clinics because of abuse. The free health care available to military dependents led to mothers rushing their children to the ER for things as minor as a sneeze, sniffle, or cough. I’m not talking about a cold, I mean one single cough or sneeze. Dependent wives wondering if they could be pregnant would go the ER at night claiming they may be pregnant and are having pains. This would force the ER to call in an off-duty lab technician to run the testes. These dependents didn’t want to wait to make a proper appointment, as it was their “right” to know now. If folks think ER’s are crowded now, just wait until the visits are free.
Fred, this damned clunker deal is fantastic. You and I and every other citizen is buying a car for those who would kill a perfectly good machine. Get this: the engine of the “clunker” must be run for 7 minutes without oil, but with a saline solution for lubricant, to euthanize the recip. Only a beaurocrat could think of such a thing.
(Fred, been out of touch at the big Fly In at Oshkosh. WI)
Doc
the engine of the “clunker�? must be run for 7 minutes without oil, but with a saline solution for lubricant, to euthanize the recip
Sounds like a freakin’ abortion!
Hey Fred,
Good news! Did you hear that the stimulus is working?
Check out this drivel http://www.latimes.com/business/la-na-obama-indiana6-2009aug06,0,1077386.story
I don’t know what to think of this guy. Is he that deluded by his own magnificence or just convinced of the complete ignorance of the sheeple?
I am surprised, and disappointed, that they didn’t gang jump him and stomp the shit out of him. What ever happened to the good old days?